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Chandler woman indicted in misuse of sons' scholarship money

The taxpayer money is given to qualifying families on reloadable Visa cards and purchases are limited to educational therapies, private-school tuition, homeschooling curriculum, online classes, community-college tuition and other items.

A state grand jury has indicted a Chandler woman on charges of illegal use of her sons' state scholarship money.

The taxpayer-funded Empowerment Scholarship Account is given to qualifying families on reloadable Visa cards and purchases are limited to educational therapies, private-school tuition, homeschooling curriculum, online classes, community-college tuition and other items. Recipients of the scholarship must agree to not enroll in a school district or charter school, and must release the school district from all obligations.

Rashanett McDermott, who received the funds for her two sons for the 2014-15 school year, is accused of spending some of the money at Walmart.

She did not immediately respond to The Republic's request for comment via Facebook.

According to a Sept. 21 state grand jury indictment, McDermott is suspected of buying several electronic devices on Walmart.com, including a high-definition television, a smartphone and two computer tablets.

McDermott was asked to pay back the scholarship funds. She did not do so.

The grand jury indicted her on charges of fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices and two counts of theft.

"Anyone who is found to have blatantly abused the system by misusing public benefits will be investigated and vigorously prosecuted by my office," said Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “Protecting the taxpayers of Arizona is a top priority.”

Mia Garcia, spokeswoman for Brnovich, said McDermott faces three to 12 1/2 years in prison.

Brnovich received the case in April, after state education officials began their investigation into McDermott shortly after a purchase in August 2014. A code generated by the charge caused officials to take "a second look," said Aiden Fleming, deputy director for policy development and government relations with the Education Department, in June.

Back then, Michael Bradley, chief of staff to state schools Superintendent Diane Douglas, said education officials referred the case to the Attorney General's Office after they determined the types of services offered by the clinic where the money was spent did not include educational therapies that would meet state requirements.

He said at the time: "They go to a place that's not obviously a school place. What they did is went to an innocuous health-care clinic, which may or may not be for the kid's condition, and so our staff ... they looked into it and checked. And found that in this case, it appeared — it's alleged — that the person in the guise of using it for health care for education of the child, paid for an abortion."